Do they really expect us to believe this?

Rhoda Klapp

Ooooh, we're all going to the spa! Or have I misunderstood?

Slim Jim

Have you noticed how (relatively) quiet Mandelson has been of late? I wouldn't be surprised if this comment could be attributed to him. However, it's more of the delusional pish that's being spouted from the bunker. My, how Brown got all his non-existent divisions on the move this week!

The Bellman

Except it's NOT like going to A&E, is it? It's even less like going to a spa - though the imagery is itself redolent of the pampered insulated life of senior politicians.

This is another attempt to evade blame, by not-very-subtle portrayal of this government as a victim of events beyond its control: 'The car came out of nowhere!' 'My wife pushed me down the stairs.' Or more appropriastely for modern Britain 'I wasn't given proper training in how to use the ladder so I fell and broke my legs.'

This is more like undertaking a month-long crack-smoking spree, and having to go to the police for protection because you can't afford to pay your dealer and he's going to break your legs.

Ken

They can spin it as much as they like. They're headed to the IMF and it will be even more painful than last time.

Perhaps you might find it interesting to dig out the comparative 1976 figures ahead of the last IMF bailout and the subsequent measures imposed?

Might make for some interesting reading ahead of the second Labour dose?

I was in Lisbon when Socialists drove Portugal to bankruptcy in the 1980s and the IMF imposed draconian measures. They cured the problem at great social cost but it didn't stop there. IMF inspectors were back every 6 months for almost a decade to do a headmasters report and the papers spoke of ongoing humiliation each time they did so!

It's a great lesson for the Left.

DATman

One suspects that Labour, as a (w)hole, wants to treat the IMF as just another credit card to max out, never mind the extortionate repayment rates. (Hoping that the Tories, by being good boys and living within their means, will piss the credit-addicted electorate off so much that Labour get relected after only one term in opposition.)

Bob.India

When Brown does go cap in hand to the IMF, will Cameron and Co give him and his NuLabour buffoons a real hammering in the House and then force a vote of no confidence?

Unfortunately, on present Tory form, I have a similar lack of confidence that this will happen!

Charles

In spinning circles this is known as 'reality shift'. Don't why they bother with words really, should just dispense LSD on the NHS.

Publius

The quotation comes from the Robert Peston school of patronising drivel.

Thomas Cussans

Is this the most outrageous of all the great Macmaniac's lies? Has he decided in whatever passes for his higher brain functions these days that the IMF is a kind of shiny clinic that it is only natural for 'healthy' economies to check into periodically for a routine medical? And that not to visit the IMF in this way for confirmation of your essential good health is the sign of an economy on the rocks?

So, those who make use of the IMF are like the kind of prudent person who exercises regularly, doesn't smoke, drinks only in moderation and watches their diet whereas those feckless types who spurn it are akin to permanently pissed lard buckets with a 40-a-day habit and a guaranteed risk of a major heart attack.

If he seriously expects anyone to believe this grotesque inversion of the truth he is barking, absolutely round the twist and out the other side.

jim

I suppose Hysteria will stop saying all is well now.
The other looming crisis is the demographic one. Retirement as we knew it is about to end, there aren't enough young people paying in to the pension system to support the retired. Here in Japan there are more and more old people working in convenience stores.
The shock of what is about to happen is going to destroy a lot of people.

teledu

Yes James, it really would be an humiliation for Brown (and the country) no matter how they tried to spin it. Maybe it would consign them to opposition for another long spell - but do Cameron and his cohorts have the nuts, not just to dole out the necessary medicine but to tell the nation BEFORE an election what needs to be done? I'm not so sure they do. Yet there's probably never been as good a time in recent years for an opposition to tell it how it is without alienating potential voters. Yet will Cameron do it? (Cuts in benefits, cuts in state sector jobs, raise in taxes etc. ).
I've been sickened by what zanuLabour have done to my country since 1997; so are many others. Yet to have an opposition that seems frightened or unable to be honest with the electorate is a very depressing possibility. Come on Dave C: we can take the bad news (even perhaps if it means delaying the Inheritance Tax promise for a year or two). You could even sweeten the economic medicine by promising a few democratic/civil liberty/immigration/ sweets. (Referendum on Lisbon regardless of ratification after Ireish referendum re-run for example),

Michael

I sussed this earlier on this morning in the Telegraph. Then I went to Polly's bit in the Guardian, where she says that "New world, new rules: now Brown must dare to spend", and viola!

Mitch

"like getting wellbeing care or even like going to a spa to recuperate"

errrr no its like having your head frozen in the hope they find a cure for running out of other people money.

Tim Carpenter LPUK

The IMF often asks for slashing public spending, paying off debt, a return to sound money, removing trade barriers, ending corporatism (monopolies, concessions) and a sensible tax regime.

Who needs to bring in the IMF? The Libertarian Party has aimed for this from the day it was founded.

We are in a tepid tub in a freezing bathroom. The Libertarian Party aims to face the brief chill - stand up, dry off and move on. Gordon Brown's solution is to, how can I say?, add his own warm fluids to the water - Quantitative Relieving. As if that would help one iota.

drakes drum

Where will Cameron be if the IMF are asked to help?

He will be probably congratulating Brown! He has not got any idea how to take his gloves off.

The country is angry over MP's expenses...Cameron's solution More pay for them!!

Hannan makes a brilliant speech Cameron took almost five days to acknowledge it!!!

He has had enough evidence to kill off Brown but has not!!

the man is weak and will probably snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Where oh where is our New Maggie?

GAW

Re Slim Jim's comment: Mandy was on C4 news a couple of nights ago and when asked whether we'd be paying a visit to the IMF like Mexico he said 'we're certainly not going to be first in the queue'. So that's a 'yes, not right now but soon', isn't it?

This seemed an extraordinary admission but it wasn't followed up by Jon Snow.

Just another spineless prole

Hello coffee housers,

I have noticed from lurking on this blog that most of you posters are intelligent, concerned, questioning and self-determining individuals.

In some of my many lives (and I am not talking in the Glen Hoddle 'I have a deformity, so I must have been Genghis Khan in a passed life' sense), I have worked amongst the non-intelligent, non-concerned, non-questioning, dependent sector of the population, ie the majority.

These people believe every word they hear on TV, from The Ministry of Truth. TV is their god.

This is how The Beloved Leader is able to brazenly lie to us. He knows that the proles will believe him, The Party are in on it, and what's left will not be heard, or if they are will have been labelled as crackpots and disposed or consigned to the annals of inconsequential history one way or the other.

OK, so I'm an Orwell fan, but every day I see us move more toward this fate. Whilst our educational standards carry on slipping, we are moving inexorably closer to the 1984 reality. What use is the internet in by-passing our propaganda news if most people use it to chat inanely on Facebook or download porn?

Blogs like this one give an opposing opinion a platform, but in the end these are only words. Action is what is required, but who is prepared to sacrifice their essentially comfy lives to make a difference?

Quite frankly, not me, and I don't see anyone else storming parliament to make a real change.

Why? Our lives aren't that bad really are they? We have food, we have a roof, we have a social cirlce of friends with whom to pass the time - well most do anyway. So committing to revolution means taking the chance to throw all that away. We need courage, and most of us are spineless bags of hot air.

The Beloved Leader knows this. He has his plan, and it is working. Cui bono?

Jenny

Labour won't worry about this at all because Labour will always be bailed out politically by the BBC.

The licence fee must go.

Verity

Teledu - David Cameron isn't going to make any concessions on Europe, including the referendum on the "Lisbon Treaty" (Constitution.) He sees his own future in Europe. He's a Europhile and he is afraid to let the public know it.

I, too, have been sickened by what the socialists have done to my country since 1997, but do not look to David Cameron's social democrats to make any changes. That includes, don't look for him to have a clear-out of unproductive immigrants and their "wives". Don't look for him to outlaw wearing Islamic frightwear on the head. Don't look to him to slash the public sector by 50 per cent (or any per cent). David Cameron is someone who is devoted to not rocking the boat. He has his future in Europe to consider.

I don't think the Tories will win the next election, for which much thanks, because I think Cameron, the self-styled heir to Blair, would be disastrous and people would give him a chance, which would be fatal. After Labour has staggered to a weak-kneed and unsustainable "victory", the real Tories, and the new Leader, will take over the Tory Party and chase the dying Labour Party off the premises within months of their win.

TGF UKIP

Yes, James, you and other Coffee Housers quite rightly pour scorn on Gordon's latest piece of brass neck effrontery. But why shouldn't he be able to get away with it?

Aftet all,week in and week out journos such as your colleague F Nelson, Jeff Randall and Peter Oborne shred Brown, they flay him, they tear him to pieces while all the while your Tory best friends Cameron and Osborne, masterminded by the Mekon, lay barely a glove on him.

Gordon is absolutely right to believe with a bit of spin and massaging, he'll be able to sail through again.

I have to say once again, the worst government faced by the worst opposition ever. Poor old Britannia.

Denis Cooper

I really think this is unlikely to happen.

In 1976 the fear was inflation, but now it's deflation, and that makes a crucial difference - it means that the government can justify printing money.

So although the government may have to borrow £180 billion in the coming year, it will only have to ask private investors for £80 million - the rest will in effect be borrowed from the Bank of England.

How?

Well, on Wednesday the Bank of England in Threadneedle Street created £3.5 billion and bought up existing gilts, while half a mile away in Philpot Lane the Treasury's Debt Management Office sold new gilts, also to the value of £3.5 billion.

So on that day the government borrowed £3.5 billion, added to the national debt, without having to ask private investors for any net increase in their lending.

There's a caveat: the government will be able to borrow enough to cover its deficit, unless RBS and Lloyds start making large claims against the insurance Darling has provided through his "Asset Protection Scheme".

Which might happen; either because they've deceived him about the toxicity of the insured assets, or because the economic background gets a lot worse.

In that case, the budget deficit could potentially be very much higher, and then it could become impossible to fund it even through a rigged gilts market.

Hysteria

Jim - I don't think it is a case of "stop saying" - I may have made a few positive comments of late but I am far from sanguine.

Another IMF bailout to a socialist led government should be a disaster for Labour - but sadly I suspect the sheople will buy the "spa" line.....

And the conservatives will get the blame....

Reading Dan Hannan's The Plan - excellent stuff!!!!

Ray

Does this Cabinet minister charge his spa visits on his Commons expenses?

Ian C

On this basis there is little problem for the Tories to call the IMF in, a couple of weeks after getting elected, and saying that that the mess was worse than they thought on opening the books!

They could then blame all frugal cutting measures for first term on GB.

I don't ssuppose said minister was thinking in these terms!